Cheeseman. — On Maori Carved Burial-chests. 455 



of the carvings, the tvala being evidently of much more recent 

 date than the others. Heremaia does not mention the small 

 square-ended box-like chest with perforated sides. With re- 

 spect to the names applied to the chests by Heremaia, it may 

 be said that the word " tiki " would naturally be used by the 

 present-day Maoris to designate a carving imitating the human 

 figure ; and that " waka " is regularly employed to represent 

 anything shaped like a canoe — for instance, waka-huia, a box 

 for holding huia -feathers. 



As already mentioned, the chests are eight in number. Of ■ 

 these, six are much older than the rest, and are carved repre- 

 sentations of the human figure, wdth a hollow body, and a flat 

 lid at the back. The largest is 5 ft. 9 in. in height, the next is 

 5 ft., and two others are 4 ft. 6 in. The remaining two were 

 evidently smaller than the above at first, but are both injured, 

 one having lost its head, and both of them portions of the legs. 

 The carving is very distinctive, and quite unlike anything else in 

 the Museum. The photographs reproduced in illustration of this 

 article (Plates XII and XIII) will give a better idea than any 

 description of mine, but I may draw attention to the singular 

 leaflike pattern, very well marked in the two largest figures, 

 and which is set at an acute angle to a central line passing down 

 the middle of the body. The peculiar way in w^hich the eyes 

 are represented, the remarkable tongue of the largest figure, 

 and the very curious manner in which the hands are carved, 

 are all points worthy of close study. It should also be men- 

 tioned that the carving on the body of the third largest figure 

 differs from all the others in being unlike on the opposite sides 

 of the central line — one side showing the leaflike pattern of the 

 rest, the other a succession of parallel longitudinal lines with 

 numerous dots between, the effect being very similar to the old 

 style of tattooing with straight lines and dots, represented in 

 one of the plates i]i " Cook's Voyages." The two remaining 

 chests, already stated to be of more recent date, are more or less 

 canoe-shaped with square ends. The one with the representation 

 of a lizard on the back is very finely and regularly carved with 

 a modification of the same leaflike pattern, the carving being 

 much more deeply cut than in the other figures. Both of these 

 chests w'ere coloured red with kokowai w^hen found, w'hereas 

 the others show-ed no trace of ever having been coloured. 



It is permissible to speculate as to the age of the chests. 

 According to Heremaia Kauere, the death of his grandfather, 

 Kahu Makaka — who was bitten by the lizard — took place 

 some years before the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, and the 

 lizard must have been in the cave some years before Kahu's 

 visit. We cannot assign a lesser age than seventy-five years 



